Chest in Delves and Bookcase Skill Increases

Veinblood1965 · January 10

Maybe it's just me but I recently rolled a new toon after coming back to ESO and decided to take my time in each zone, delves etc and explore every nook and cranny. I've noticed in the older zones like in Grahtwood delves for example there are significantly more chests than in Murkmire or the two new Elsweyr zone delves. Also when checking out bookcases for skill point increases it's extremely rare in the new zones to get a skill point increase versus older zones.

Has anyone else noticed this? If so it's kind of lame, I mean how hard is it to program extra spawn points for chests and increase the randomness of skill point increases? It makes it a pain for a new toon. The odd thing is that in the open PVE world chests are about on par with the older zones, it's just in the delves.

idk · January 10

I do not know if there are more or less chests in DLC delves vs base game delves but I must ask how are you determining there are less chess? If it is just how man you could find that is not a very good sample as others could have recently opened a few.

If on PC it is probably best to use an addon like Harvest Nodes where you can download known pins for chests, bag, crafting matts and more. There you can get more reliable information for comparison. If on Console, oops.

As for bookcases, I have not paid much attention since I do not stress about getting all known books. I can only say we pretty much felt there were not many books for Wardens when that chapter released.

Veinblood1965 · January 10

Thank you for the reply. It's just a general feeling I've had as I like exploring every single part of a delve. It may be that there are just more people in the newer delves also harvesting the chests also, it does seem to be significantly less though.

My toon is a Warden also, mostly like the books for the instant skill increases like two hand or bow for example which I'm leveling now. I went into a Grahtwood delve last night and had probably 5 or 6 skill increases from book cases and hadn't really thought about it till now but the newer zones I hardly ever get one.

Bucky_13 · January 10

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Thank you for the reply. It's just a general feeling I've had as I like exploring every single part of a delve. It may be that there are just more people in the newer delves also harvesting the chests also, it does seem to be significantly less though.

I think this is the main reason. I often skip chests in older zones unless they have sets that are wanted by players, while always looting them in newer zones since the style mats from decons are often worth a bit. I also see a lot more players in delves in newer zone delves compared to older ones. Which probably means more players are looting those chests.

AcadianPaladin · January 10

When I make a new character, they are very diligent about hitting bookcases for skill increases. Thing is, there is a point of diminishing returns once you've gotten plenty of skill increases. What works for me is to quit worrying about bookcases once reaching L40 since there are too few unknown skillbooks to make it worthwhile.

Sorry that my comment is not exactly on point as far as differences among zones. Not sure on that since I always do early leveling in basic alliance zones.

Veinblood1965 · January 10

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

When I make a new character, they are very diligent about hitting bookcases for skill increases. Thing is, there is a point of diminishing returns once you've gotten plenty of skill increases. What works for me is to quit worrying about bookcases once reaching L40 since there are too few unknown skillbooks to make it worthwhile.

Sorry that my comment is not exactly on point as far as differences among zones. Not sure on that since I always do early leveling in basic alliance zones.

I used to do that very same thing past forty but then started doing it for the crafting skill increases, it might just be me but it seems the lower level skills are the ones that the book cases split out most often. Plus I decon everything at the end of the day which adds a point or two to each craft, reaching level 50 in each one without much effort. Note I've only leveled one other alternate but it's nice to do jewelry dailies for the gold mats.

kringled_1 · January 10

As far as chests in delves goes, I think @Bucky_13 has the main point. Almost all dlc and chapter delves have a daily associated with them that people will run for the rewards,which keeps them more busy.

As far as skill level increases, please look at this https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Skill_Books
It's not a purely random setup, and most of those books are in base game areas only. The two exceptions I can think of are one warden book you can find on Vvardenfell, and two books for jewelry that are only on Summerset. I don't know if there are any new ones with Elsweyr.

Contaminate · January 10

I make sure not to read from bookcases on new characters until my skill lines are high already. The books raise the level by one no matter if you’re at 2 in a skill line or at 49. More use from them if you grab for those last few levels.

RavenSworn · January 11

Technically, having more access to skill books at the base game zones ensures that all players regardless if they bought the dlcs or no.

Ratzkifal · January 11

My guess is that new areas have new books but only old books - established to increase a certain skill from older games - actually increase skills, because the new books are not about skill lines but new lore.

bearbelly · January 11

There have been several times in which I have traveled, daily, over some of my favorite areas and ended-up just assuming that there weren't very many chests or troves to be found there, but then suddenly out-of-the-blue, one day I'll go over the same spot as I have umpteen other times and I'll find chests every few feet, it seems, and thieves troves I've never encountered.

It just depends on when you hit the spot and how many other people have been in the area before you on that particular day, at that particular time.

It's one of the reasons why I don't put much stock, if any, in forum-folk claims that the population in-game is dying, if not flat-out dead.
SOMEBODY is finding all of those chests before I do, most days, and I'm all over the map, and at different times.

Varana · January 11

Regarding the skill points, I would also assume that newer zones are weighted to have their zone books more often, and less generic books. And afaik, new DLC don't usually add skill books, except for Jewelry ones from Summerset.